Google Chromecast gets the teardown treatment, but no repairability score

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The Google Chromecast is in high demand after being announced at Google’s event on July 24th. This tiny HDMI stick runs a stripped down version of Chrome OS, but what’s in there? It does a lot without much space to pack in hardware and it’s only $35, but iFixit has gotten one and torn it asunder to answer that very question.

The HDMI connector is soldered onto the motherboard. Powering the device is a Marvell DE3005-A1 system-on-a-chip (SoC). Next to that on the board is a AzureWave WiFi/Bluetooth/FM radio chip. Only the WiFi portion is being used, as far as anyone can tell. This supports only the 2.4GHz band, though. On the other side of the chip is a 4GB NAND flash chip where the operating system lives, and a single 512MB DDR3L RAM chip (the L stands for low-voltage).

That’s virtually all there is inside the Chromecast, so it’s no surprise Google is able to charge only $35 for it. The device feels more substantial than that when it’s all assembled, but that’s probably because of the heatsink — it’s massive for such a small device. It’s a solid chunk of aluminum that runs almost the entire length of the device.

The folks at iFixit decided not to even assign its usual repairability score to the Chromecast. There is nothing to repair — it’s one circuit board with an HDMI connector. If it dies, it dies and hopefully gets recycled. At least it’s only $35, though.